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UNLV is making strides in developing its academic health center, a Top Tier initiative aimed at unifying the university's health sciences under a cohesive vision. 

The initiative — which will improve healthcare delivery in our community, better educate future practitioners, and increase interdisciplinary research across medical disciplines — has been an institutional goal for more than a decade. In the past several years, a stakeholder leadership team has worked diligently behind the scenes to transform those goals into action. 

Now, the team is ready to talk about its achievements.

“We’ve been meeting in earnest for four years,” said Dr. Marc Kahn, dean of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV and vice president for health affairs. “But we haven’t done a good job telling people what we’ve accomplished. Now it’s time to socialize our progress."

The Origin Story: Building a Strong Foundation

The push to create an academic health center originated in the aftermath of the financial crisis in the 2010s, as members of the Las Vegas community and university leadership developed the university's long-term, strategic plan, now called Top Tier 2.0. 

Internationally, an academic health model is defined by the grouping of university health professional schools and disciplines in partnership with an affiliated teaching hospital or hospital network. In addition to elevating medical care statewide, there was also a recognition that this direction would bolster the university’s pursuit of its Carnegie R1 research status. 

In 2018, UNLV achieved that coveted R1 status for the first time, and ahead of its anticipated schedule. Then, it retained the R1 ranking again in 2022. 

Meanwhile, Kahn was hired as dean of the medical school in 2020 and was appointed to vice president for health affairs the next year. Recognizing the need for a unified approach, he continued to convene the deans of the various health sciences schools — Dental Medicine, Integrated Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health — along with experts in behavioral health programs from other colleges.

In 2021, then newly-appointed UNLV President Keith Whitfield — whose own academic background is in psychology, health, and aging — noted that this was a pivotal time to consider how non-medical mental health services, including social work and counseling, could play a significant role in the university’s broader health care goals. Michelle Paul, the Workday-endowed executive director of UNLV PRACTICE and assistant vice president of mental and behavioral health, was appointed to the core stakeholder team as a result.

“We work well together,” said Kahn, reflecting on the stakeholder group as a whole. “We know each other well, we respect each other, and we talk very regularly about what we’re doing and where we’re going."

He also noted that UNLV’s model of academic health is visionary in the field.

“There are successful academic health centers across the country,” Paul agreed. “But is there anything that we could be doing differently, from the ground up, that would be extra special in terms of integrating dental, behavioral, and public health alongside traditional physical health? 

“That's what gets me most excited."

Strategic Goals for the Future

The team identified four primary goals to drive their efforts:

1. Improving Access to Care: The center aims to enhance healthcare access for the community, ensuring that patients receive timely and coordinated care.
    
2. Unifying Patient Care: A key goal is to bring all patient care under a single practice plan, allowing for more efficient and comprehensive healthcare delivery.
    
3. Expanding Interdisciplinary Research: The center seeks to encourage faculty and researchers from various schools to collaborate on grants and research projects, driving innovation in healthcare together.
    
4. Increasing Interprofessional Education: By fostering collaboration among students across different health disciplines, the initiative prepares a new generation of healthcare professionals to work effectively in integrated teams — as they must in clinical settings.

Challenges and Progress

Kahn is frank about the challenges the team has faced. Initially, the initiative faced funding hurdles, operating with minimal financial support. An investment of more than $2.1 million from the state provided a much-needed boost, allowing for the creation of positions to advance the center's mission, including a grant writer, a contract manager, and a chief of staff, who is also responsible for strategic initiatives.

Kahn and team also identified the need for a physical clinical building, where various health disciplines can be co-located, allowing patients to receive comprehensive medical care in one place. When an initial attempt to secure funding for such a building fell through, the project hung in limbo. Despite this setback, stakeholders remain committed to securing alternative sources of funds—and are confident those funds will appear.

The Importance of Coordinated Care

Why is a physical clinical space such a high priority?

In short, it’s a model of care quite common in cities with established academic health centers across the country, but not yet available in Las Vegas. 

It is crucial to providing coordinated care. A patient with a complex health issue such as colon cancer, for example, could receive necessary consultations and even treatments — from diagnosis to surgery to mental health support — in a single location. Other types of support could be integrated or clustered as well, from medical billing, to social services, to access to clinical trials. 

Paul often cites a personal experience that illustrates the critical need for such integration. Once, while visiting her OB/GYN for a routine appointment, she sat in an exam room, in a gown, waiting for three hours because her doctor was dealing with a patient in crisis — a woman was suffering from severe postpartum depression in the exam room next door.

If there had been a mental health professional on staff, Paul said, her doctor would have been able to see as many as 12 patients in that three-hour window of time. 

“That’s why integrating mental and physical health services is so crucial,” she said.

Collaboration Across Disciplines

The academic health model fosters collaboration among faculty and students across the various schools of health sciences, as well. Joint grant writing, shared faculty positions in disciplines like bioethics and anatomy, and interprofessional student education opportunities are examples of the type of collaboration the initiative would make possible. 

The objective, Kahn said, is to break down silos and create a more cohesive academic environment for students and researchers alike.

James Mah, dean of the School of Dental Medicine, agrees.

“Unfortunately, over time, we’ve ‘parted out’ the human body much like automobiles, where you have someone specializing in one specific part — the transmission, or the body work, or the brakes. They only address problems with their parts, and nothing else with the car,” Mah said. In contrast, when we foster greater understanding of how each of the medical disciplines work together, he continued, “we can deliver health care much more efficiently.”

Looking Ahead

If building an academic medical center sounds like a huge undertaking, well, the team is dedicated to tackling it one step at a time. Members are focused on several key performance indicators for the 2024-25 academic year, including: 

• Increase interprofessional educational activities within academic health schools and programs by 15 percent
• Increase interdisciplinary grant submissions by 10 percent
• Increase interprofessional community service hours by 15 percent
• Increase practice plan revenue by 10 percent
• Create a model for core faculty expansion
• Increase the number of community faculty by 10 percent

An all-campus event planned later this fall will share updates and progress toward the comprehensive strategic plan, and garner further support from the UNLV community. 

Overall, stakeholders remain optimistic: with a strong foundation in place, academic health is positioned to make significant strides, 

“I’m enthusiastic,” Kahn said. “I think we can really make a difference in the community.”

“It’s promising,” agreed Mah. “I’ve been here since 2005, and in recent years, I've seen much more progress.”

“We have fertile ground to make this happen,” added Paul. “The community should know that there are some really amazing people at UNLV."